Nick Barker

kevinrkirk 2d @ Threads Why are we bothering with the Strait of Hormuz when we could simply do this? Explain it to me like l'm 5. (Drawing of chopping of part of land) suahuatica 2d MOUNTAIN HARD AND BIG, WATER NO UP. MANY MANY DIG DIG.

Happy Friday. Don’t skip school.

🦬 Don’t miss out! You have 5 days left to apply for the Prairie Conference. We’d love to see you there!

🎯 Deadline: March 10, 2026

Opinion | Trump’s Strikes on Iran Were Unlawful. Here’s Why That Matters.

The strikes on Iran are blatantly illegal. I explained in June why the strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities were unlawful under US and international law. Everything I wrote then is true today, but this is a far larger assault with far graver consequences.

www.nytimes.com/2025/06/23/o...

Sam Altman picked a hell of a day to basically urge the world to trust the morality and legal restraint of the Department of Defense

Donate to Come Back Alive here: savelife.in.ua/en/ Other ways to support Ukraine here: uil.org.uk/russias-war-...

Proud to have supported this: "after posting the link to support CBA’s Dronefall project for a second time in last weekend’s update, the money raised more than doubled. That means that you have provided funds to buy well more than 20 anti-drone/UAVs of the type that Ukraine desperately needs now."

Gladys Mae West obituary: mathematician who pioneered GPS technology She made key contributions to US cold-war science despite facing huge barriers as a Black woman.

No joke: I got angry hate mail today for writing an obituary of a Black woman scientist—because the person felt she did didn’t deserve the recognition.

Which just makes me want to share it again: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

A bird's-eye view of a former Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp showing a wide dirt pathway flanked by parallel rows of barbed-wire fences. Groups of visitors walk along the path, surrounded by the remnants of brick structures and barracks, now reduced to foundations. Green grass contrasts with the somber history of the site, as the path leads toward a guard tower in the distance.

Auschwitz was at the end of a process. We must remember that it did not start from gas chambers.

This hatred gradually developed: from ideas, words, stereotypes & prejudice through legal exclusion, dehumanization & escalating violence... to systematic and industrial murder.

Auschwitz took time.

How Much Gold Is Russia Bleeding from Africa to Fund Its War? Russian-backed forces are turning West Africa’s gold mines into killing grounds. They loot, murder, and smuggle gold to bankroll Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

Wagner mercenaries are turning West Africa’s gold fields into killing grounds. From Sudan to the Central African Republic (CAR), Russian-backed forces loot, murder, and smuggle gold and other resources to bankroll Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
united24media.com/world/how-mu...

One thing most people don't understand is that we in the US enjoy greater wealth funded by other countries because they assume we are a stable and relatively friendly hegemon.

Reminder of the spectacularly poor judgement of these people

A much-liked post by Germany’s satirical newspaper @der-postillon.com with the titles “Vienna Academy of the Arts offers Trump admission as a student” and the caption “They don’t want to get blamed again“

A joke for the history buffs:

Germany’s satirical newspaper @der-postillon.com titles: “Vienna Academy of the Arts offers Trump admission as a student — They don’t want to get blamed again“

Deutsche Bank here with the good stuff.
Game on.

What Europe could do is threaten to boycott the World Cup. It won't. But that might actually work. Trump wants his big show.

Regulator raises alarm over rise in top grades at English universities Office for Students says almost two-thirds more first-class degrees were awarded than can be explained

Regulator raises alarm over rise in top grades at English universities ft.trib.al/Fp0veYf

The Demise of Conflict Studies - Dissent Magazine An entire industry specializing in mediation, peacekeeping, disarmament, and transitional justice has become largely obsolete.

In the new @dissentmag.bsky.social issue, out today, @yguichaoua.bsky.social and I diagnose the crisis of conflict studies in a piece that is part intellectual history, part personal experience.

What was conflict studies for? And what can its travails tell us about how wars have changed?

The average salary among Russell Group leaders increased above £350,000 last year, despite these universities losing almost 7,000 staff members due to cost-cutting. Patrick Jack crunches the numbers #highered #academicsky
https://ow.ly/gJK850XU77K

So when authorities say “she tried to run over an officer,” that is not a neutral description. It is a claim of intent that can be used to justify lethal force after the fact.

When the state kills first and invents the threat afterward, it is not policing, it is death squad behavior. /end

It's New Year, so time to look back and forward. These are 10 things I think we need to recognise in 2026. It’s a response to what I think are profoundly damaging mistaken assumptions I’ve heard and read from practitioners, journalists, and analysts in 2025. Warning: very long🧵

How Google Maps quietly allocates survival across London’s restaurants - and how I built a dashboard to see through it I wanted a dinner recommendation and got a research agenda instead. Using 13000+ restaurants, I rebuild its ratings with machine learning and map how algorithmic visibility actually distributes power.

I wanted dinner recommendations so I scraped 13,000+ London restaurants and accidentally discovered Google Maps is running a shadow economy. Anyway here's a dashboard and a political economy thesis: open.substack.com/pub/laurenle...

An academic disliked an Oxford Very Short Introduction (145 pages) in his field so much that he wrote a 200 page book review attacking it. www.pierre-legrand.com/ewExternalFi...

Georgia further tightens protest rules, targets pavement rallies The draft law would require ‘prior notification’ even when a protest does not block vehicle traffic.

Georgia’s ruling Georgian Dream party has sought to further tighten protest-related legislation with another draft law which would require protesters to ‘notify’ the state in advance if a demonstration is held in areas designated for ‘people’s movement’.

Hegseth order on first Caribbean boat strike, officials say: Kill them all Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a verbal order to kill all crew members in the Sept. 2 strike on a suspected drug boat. Navy SEALs fired a second missile.

Textbook war crime/extrajudicial killing

"Two survivors were clinging to the smoldering wreck. The Special Operations commander overseeing the Sept. 2 attack ... ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s instructions."

Report by @alexhorton.bsky.social @ellenwapo.bsky.social o.bsky.social

Get serious, Europeans. You are your only hope.

Apropos of nothing, I really do think UK journalists and politicians need some reminding that mass deportation of LEGAL immigrants, particularly those with permanent status, is far more extreme than even Trump's America and would basically place Britain completely on its own among democracies.

This, this, this. If journalists don’t scrutinize this and explain it properly now then they have failed on their duty and will bear a share of the blame if such policies are enacted (most of the public oppose them and don’t I think realise what is being proposed yet).

Inventing Antifa In 2005, the Uzbek government invented a group called “Akromiya” to justify massacring protesters. Now I worry the US government will do the same.

"I've told the story of Akromiya for 20 years. I’m telling it again now, because today is No King’s Day, and I am afraid that 'Antifa' is the American Akromiya: a fabricated entity made by state propagandists to persecute anyone who opposes the government."
sarahkendzior.substack.com/p/inventing-...

Civilizing Contention by Rana B. Khoury | Paperback | Cornell University Press In Civilizing Contention, Rana B. Khoury asserts that to understand civilian and refugee activism in war, we must regard the international actors and organizations that enter the scene to help. When.....

To celebrate the upcoming release of my book, and to support emerging scholars, I'd like to buy and mail copies to ten graduate students.

If you’re a grad student who’d like a copy, reply or DM me!

www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501...

It’s been hard 24h for Georgians. Grave mistakes were made. Yesterday, Georgia lost a battle against Russian takeover - but the fight for freedom &democracy continues. If there’s one thing yst proved, it’s that resistance hasnt disappeared. They tried to bury us. They didn’t know we were seeds. 1/12